‘Global Science and Innovation’ Course Starts at Keio Gijuku University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC)

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

At this year’s entrance ceremony of Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), one of the most prestigous universities of Japan, Keio University, I had a rare opportunity to deliver a special welcome lecture  to the newly enrolled students. SFC is a relatively new campus among the Keio Gijuku founded 152 years ago, just celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, well known and attracting new type of talents for its new concept.  

Numerous graduates pursue their own professional career in various settings within and out of Japan. And quite a large percentage of these alumni have careers quite distinct from the traditional Japanese common sense (however their careers may not be uncommon careers outside of Japan….).  I know many OBs and OGs of SFC personally and there are several whom I work with today.  

Perhaps from such reasons, I was asked to offer a course on ‘Global Science and Innovation’ for this fall semester.

The first day of the course was on September 29th.  This day was so to say an ‘Introduction of the faculty (Kaomise)’, so all students who may be interested in taking this course came.  They will decide in a week or so whether or not they would register.  A graduate student TA and an undergraduate student SA are assigned to support me.  Keio SFC posted my lecture very fast on their website already.  

Using such web as a ‘tool’, through ‘trial and error’, I plan to make it a fun, interconnected, open class in which all students participate.  Time is changing steadily but rapidly, as described in a recent book which I have already introduced to my students ‘Learning on Web (Web ni Manabu)’ .  

The students in my class are undergraduates from year 1 to 4, which mean that more than half of the students were born after 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, and one year before the burst of bubble economy in Japan when the Nikkei Stock Average marked the highest share of 39 thousand yen.  Japanese economy has not grown ever since these students were in kinder garden.  I think parents, considering their age, should think about the domestic/international situation of the time in which their children grew up.  They were in primary schools at the time of ‘September 11’.  

Quite many of the students have had the experience of living abroad, I understand, so I think this will be fun.  How many students will register to my course, I wonder?  Being evaluated by students is somewhat like ‘budget-cutting panel (Jigyo-Shiwake)’, being evaluated by politicians of DPJ.  This is the hard and challenging part for the teachers in the ‘Open Education’, ‘Education in the Web age’.  

I intend to make this course a very innovative one together with the students as well as variety of guests which I am planning to invite.

Mr. Jun Kurihara of Harvard Kennedy School

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

I have introduced to you for a couple of times in my blog postings Mr. Jun Kurihara, Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School (Ref.1).

He is also a research director of The Canon Institute for Global Studies , hops around the world, and issues ‘The Cambridge Gazette’ in nearly monthly bases.  As you have read in my previous posting about him,  this Gazette is quite good in a sense that you can intuitively sense his broad human network as well as his intellects.

Mr. Kurihara dropped by at my office when he visited Tokyo recently and we had a good time together.  I felt honored to find his comments on our meeting in his latest issue of ‘The Cambridge Gazette’.  As always, this Gazzette is also filled with evidence of his deep knowledge and broad human network.

‘A person like myself would be difficult to be accepted in Japanese institutions.  I think that is why things are like this…’ says Mr. Kurihara, but clearly he is a very valuable asset.  I am sure that if we had more of people like him in Japan this nation would be more lively and active.  If ‘Unique human capital’, ‘Nails that stick out (Deru kui)’ are given more and more places to flourish, organizations will gain energy and youths will have good ‘Role models’ which eventually will make them more positive and active. For organizations, it is important to give right person the right place so as to optimize the talents giving them more chances to flourish.

Domestic and international broad connection based on ‘credibility as individual’, like Mr. Kurihara’s, is a huge asset.  The Canon Institute for Global Studies chose a good member.  Without doubt Mr. Kurihara is one of our precious ‘Human capital’ (similar but not the same as the ‘Human resource’) whom no one can exchange with any amount of money.

From ‘Healthcare System’ Reform to ‘Health and Healthcare System’ Reform: My Basic Idea

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Healthcare system reform is a huge political issue not only in developed countries but also in emerging or developing countries and in global society.  This is because of the rapid changes taking place in the structure of major diseases based not only on the progress of healthcare technologies but also on the enhancement of life expectancy, changes in social structure and in lifestyle.

In addition many societies share the problem of aging population.  Since public funding for healthcare expenditure is already pretty much to its limit even in developed countries this is another big challenge.  Also it is clear that income inequality within and across the countries continue to expand in this global world.

So, Japan is not the only nation that faces problems related to healthcare.  However, there are some reasons particular to Japan that make system reforms particularly difficult here.

This is one of the main themes that we work on at the Health Policy Institute, Japan.

However, in view of such major changes in our society, it is clear that healthcare system must be structured with more attention to social aspects.  In other words, we must take into consideration ‘Social Determinants of Health’ (Ref.1) in our policy, thus we must create not ‘Healthcare (Medical, in principle) System’ as it is but rather ‘Health and Healthcare System’. Otherwise I suspect that winning public support for policy or its implementation would be difficult.

Here, I will introduce to you my recent interview (in Japanese) reflecting such thoughts.

Same perspective is also expressed in my book ‘University Hospital Reform (Daigaku Byoin Kaikaku)’ (in Japanese).

‘Learning on Web: Open Education and Revolution of Learning’, A ‘Must’ Book

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Dr. Iiyoshi  whom I have introduced to you last year (blog, Ref.1) (in Japanese) and Mr. Umeda  （blog） (in Japanese) who is sending out messages from Silicon Valley such as his book ‘Going Through the Web Age (Web Jidai Wo Yuku)’ (by the way, he is also a great writer on shogi game (Japanese chess game))recently co-authored and published ‘Learning on Web (‘Web de Manabu)’ (in Japanese). The book offers lots of ‘eye-opening’ information, very rich in content, and I recommend strongly to all educators and people who are interested in learning or (their) children’s education.

‘Learning on Web’ gives you the idea and sense of how education, starting with the epoc-making OpenCourseWare of MIT (included in the Top50 websites in recent Times magazine), has become ‘Open’, how amazing the speed and power of the trend of the ‘Web age’ is.

As I have been pointing out repeatedly even in many public ‘occasions’  (Ref.1, 2), Internet is a tool that ‘empowers individuals’ with an impact comparable to the printing technology invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century.  Internet enables individuals in broader area to access and/or ‘share’ to broader audience.  It expands globally regardless of country border or time.  Conseqently, new ‘inquiries’ will be raised by many more people, ‘questioning of the (traditional) authorities’ will follow.  Thus, this change continues to move forward but never backwards.  Nations, companies, institutions which fail to adapt itself to this change, or attempts to oppose it will inevitably have to suffer more damages.  I regard this as the essence of ‘globalization’.

iTune, iPod, IPhone, and iPad are some good recent examples.  Just by thinking what industrial sectors resisted, or how these products changed society or the global world, and what eventually became of those resisting power, you will well understand what I mean.
  
In other words, this ‘Learning on Web’ is not only giving information on the new world changes of education to educators, but also reminding them of their responsibilities and questioning how they performed.

However, if you see this book as ‘empowerment of individuals’, ‘Learning on Web’ is asking actively to all students (recipients of education) and learners (who are willing to learn) what kind of education they want, introducing them to new educational opportunities and tools for learning, possibilities of discoveries that make them better and grow.

Also, I sense in this book a concern for Japan which appears to be resting in isolation from the change of the world.  I imagine that this is because that the two authors have been away from Japan for long years, have built their careers outside Japan as an indepedent individual, and therefore are increasingly becoming frustrated and even sorry  (in Japanese) for closed Japan which remains incapable of changing in this rapidly globalizing world, and also reflect their deep love, ‘patriotism’ (not ‘nationalism’) for Japan.

I recommend this book to all people, a ‘must’ reading to all grown ups who are concerned with education.

By the way, the outline of this book and the points they intended to make are given in the blogs of Mr. Umeda and Dr. Iiyoshi  which I have introduced to you above.  Many of the resource sites introduced in this book are shown in a list in this blog. Even if you do not have the book ‘Learning on Web’ at hand, these blogs will help you visit many valuable sites.

It is wonderful to know that there are so many, many people who are devoted to education and nurturing people of the ‘world’.

 

?

The Economist, Sarcastic But Honest: ‘Food For ‘Zombies’, ‘The Civil Service Serves Itself’

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

I would say that ‘The Economist’ competes for the 1st or 2nd position as the most widely read weekly magazines in economy.  This magazine even picks up the issues of its home country, Great Britain with plenty of sarcasms, to report to its people and the world what they need to know.  This precisely is the most important and basic mission of journalism, the foundation for its credibility.  The Economist has its own ‘unique, cool’ style in writings, titles, figures and charts which makes it so special and unsurpassable.

Those, I think, are the reasons why The Economist or Financial Times are so highly evaluated, being read by business people throughout the world.  In short, their works are professional.

Japanese journalism is quite different here.  Basically it is rather on the establishment side as you see for example by the system of members only ‘Press Club (Kishya Kurabu)’ and their reports are in large part targeted to Japanese only, i.e. mere 2% of the population of the whole world.  It is a matter of course then that journalism of the ‘global age’ will not develop in such circumstance. I doubt that they (Japanese journalists) have such ambition to be global in the first place.

I have recently introduced to you in my blog one of the articles of The Economist and here I would like to call your attention to a good sarcasm in the article (1) and another in the ‘On-line’ edition (2).

Please refer to the original for the full text but:
In (1), the subtitle is striking; ‘Food for zombies’(click here for Japanese translation of the article). They write how Japanese government endlessly supports not well performing big companies, and new enterprises hardly emerging, so many no-good companies survive, thus only to become ‘zombies’. This is a keen observation which I totally agree.
In (2), the title is; ‘The civil service serves itself’ describing the irresponsible current mechanism and governance of Japanese bureaucrats or civil servants; they enjoy ‘Descent from Heaven (Amakudari).’ Spending huge amounts of public money for themselves.

The world is noticing the reality of Japan.  What will become of our national credibility?

These days politics seems to be occupied with nothing but their struggles within the party.  Our country is having 5 prime ministers in 4 years – an outrageous nation (Tondemo Kokka) – are we going to have the 6th prime minister beginning later this month?

What has become of the elites of ‘intellect’ of this nation (Ref.1); ‘legislators, governments, industries’ and ‘academics’, I wonder?

Don’t they care any more about the people of Japan?

Does Japan now have to head for the crises ?

Hayman Island, ADC Leadership Retreat -1

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Please click here for the photos.

After attending two conferences from the morning on August 27th, I returned home to pack my baggage and be at Narita late in the afternoon.  This was the reason why I was unable to attend the lecture of Professor Sandel.

The plane took off from Narita shortly after 9pm arriving at Brisbane Airport at 7am after a 9 hours’ flight.  The cabin was not too spacious although I was in the business class, the seats did not become near-flat, so I did not get much sleep.  At Brisbane airport I spent 4 hours for transit to JQ (JetStar) for an 1hour and 40 min. flight to Hamilton.  Then finally I got on a cruiser to Hayman Island. At last I am here to join the  ‘ADC Forum Retreat’.  Regretfully I have been unable to accept their kind invitation for a few years because of my schedule elsewhere.

Most of the people on the cruiser were those who came for the meeting.  Inside the cruiser was very comfortable, cruising moved smoothly on the quiet surface of the sea, we enjoyed the nice view of many islands that the boat passed by.  A whale was seen along.  We were told that we were cruising along the route of the whales.  The weather was not too wonderful but was not too cold either.  I think it was about 70?.  A bit cloudy, rain might be falling any minute.

As we were enjoying glasses of champagne and conversation for about an hour, the boat arrived at the Hayman Island.  We wasted no time to check in to the hotel and were guided to our rooms by 4pm.  It took quite a while for my baggage to be delivered to my room, however.

The time flew quickly and the ‘ADC Form’ (Ref.1) started at 4:45 pm.  Since I was scheduled to be on ‘Opening Plenary: Australia ?Big questions and new unknowns’ I had no choice but to go to the venue and on the stage in my jeans (to my relief everybody was dressed casually, no one had ties on…)

The federal election of 6 days ago resulted in both Liberal/National coalition (Mr Abbott) and Labor (Ms Gillard) parties gaining less than half of the seats by a few seats, both now starting to negotiate with the minority parties for cooperation.  Such phenomenon (is called ‘Hung Parliament’, maybe the same as the ‘Twisted Parliament (Nejire Kokkai)’ in Japan) was never experienced in this country in the past.  So the argument follows that this might be the end of the ‘Era of 2 Major Parties’.  The same thing happened at the General Election in Great Britain, remember?  Maybe this shows how values of the people are changing and diversifying in this global age beyond just two parties to choose.

The Opening Panel was hosted by the well known anchor person of BBC, Nik Gowing , Part-1 started with a 15 minutes’ comments on the federal election by Ms Annabel Crabb, the chief political writer of ‘ABC Online’, followed by the vibrant discussions by 3 Panelists.

Part-2 started by a 20 minutes’ speech by ‘Lord Nicholas Stern’ on Climate Change and (its) challenge for economic growth, reflecting analyses of economic growth cycle led by technology innovation, each lasting 50-60 years after the industrial revolution; with changes in social structure and function.  Then followed a panel by Dr Raghida Dergham, a columnist and a reporter on diplomacy, Bror Saxburg, Chief Learning Officer of Kaplan, Dr. Daniel Shapiro of Harvard University and myself.

Both discussions at ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’ were extraordinarily interesting and stimulating.

The federal election in Australia is one thing, but on the other hand, in Japan, there were 5 prime ministers in 4 years after Mr Koizumi, and just a week ago Mr. Ozawa announced that he will run for the head, thus for the prime minister, in the Democratic Party of Japan which means that we might have 6 prime ministers in 4 years.  In Australia, the latest election result raised a big political discussion.  How about Japan?  Aren’t we too optimistic, too easy going, not analytical on agendas of canditates, and implications?  Anyhow the way of thinking and behavior of our ‘leaders’ are ‘in the teacup’ mode – just too much.  Good grief….  Nor do I recall hearing any sort of ‘national vision and strategic policies for the issues’ from any of those leading legislators to begin with.

At dinner, I was seated next to Lord Stern so was able to have a very good intensive discussion with him.  This was a great bonus for me.  Actually, I missed chance to see him in Tokyo for 2 times in these two years.  This was a part of our conversation, too.

After dinner, the final session ‘Science, Public Policy and the Elusive Common Ground’ started at 10pm.  I was one of the 2 panelists with Prof Penny Sackett, the ‘Chief Scientist for Australia’ for the Australian government.  This 1 hour session was hosted by CSIRO’s CEO, Dr Megan Clark.

The whole day was full of learning and pleasure.

 

L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship, Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki Wins Special Award

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

On August 23th I left Okinawa AYEPO 2010 closing ceremony for Tokyo where I headed directly to the L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship Award Ceremony.

As I always say, shining women are the hope of Japan.

Again this year 4 bright and young women scientists were awarded this honor.? Also this year, a special award was given to astronaut Naoko Yamazaki? (Ref.1). The ceremony was even more highlighted by her presence.? The stage was very beautifully set up and the program moved smoothly, which is very much the ‘L’Oreal style’, as I always say.? I was asked to make a toast, which I of course happily accepted.?

Every year beginning 1998, in collaboration of UNESCO, 5 wonderful women scientists are awarded one each from the 5 continents of the world?(Ref.1). This fellowship award, by the way, started in Japan five years ago to encourage the young women scientists.

I spent wonderful time with wonderful people just as I did two year ago at the award ceremony of 2008.

Quite a number of people gathered include Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, former Director General of UNESCO, former (Ms Bando) and current (Ms. Okajima) Directors of the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office (3 successive directors since this post was founded are all women).

The future of Japan lies in how quickly we can create and expand the places for women to participate actively?(Ref.1,2).?

I would say that the major barrier is the ‘men-centered chauvinistic’ mindset and social structure, the society? where ‘herbivorous (soshokukei) men’ are dominating and taking charge.? I also suspect they (men) are scared of revealing how they actually are.? However, it is clear that in this transition from ‘vertically’ to ‘horizontally’ expanding global age, the time of ‘social titles’ with little real content or value to the world has ended long time ago.

?

China Ranks 2nd, Japan Goes Down to the 3rd in the World in GDP; From the Article of The Economist

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

GDP of Japan which used to be the 2nd largest in the world fell to 3rd after China.

This news itself is not so much to worry about because GDP is strongly affected by the size of the population. China with population 10 times larger than Japan to overtake her (Japan’s) position of the 2nd in the world ranking of the GDP was something that was predicted for a long time the only question being ‘when’.

What truly matters is the GDP per capita.  Japan has fallen off the position of the 2nd in GDP per capita the world and has keeping places somewhere around 18th or so for quite a while.  This is not surprising, since, to begin with, Japan’s GDP has not grown in the least for these 15 years.  I suspect that Japan is the only nation in the OECD (in Japanese) that has not achieved any growth in GDP for these 15 years.

Up to date no signs of growth are observed in Japan, and few in the world expects little sign of change from Japan, thus no investments come to Japan.  Changes in other OECD nations are obvious since the 2008 ‘Lehman Shock’ but Japan is still lingering in that terrible situation of ‘no economic growth, increasing its dept only.’ 

The Economist, as always, is pointing out the important issues clearly in its article of August 19th ‘Watching China whizz by’ (Click here for Japanese translation of the article).　Views of Professor Ishikura, one of my friends, appear in the article, too.  As I say, larger corporations can not make decisions or is late when they do.  As the article points out, big companies are basically all the same in their conducts, our government does not dare to let incompetent companies down so it makes many ‘Zombie companies’ surviving.  This will discourage new enterprises to emerge.  Don’t they realize that the market and business of the world has changed drastically?   We are now in the age of ‘Demand-driven、Open and Disruptive Innovation.’

Anyway, as you see in the chart in The Economist the rate of growth of economy in China is extraordinary.

Not knowing your partners, not having multitudes of networks of friends of long time in growing developing nations can constitute big handicaps for our future growth.  Just to give you an idea, for example, the estimated growth rate of the whole Africa is 5.6%.  What are your business strategies?

Out to the Expanding Blog Network of the World

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Basically, I write my Blog postings in both Japanese and English.  Without English, this Blog would belong to only 2% of the people in the world and although my main target is the Japanese people, I believe that many of my messages have relevance to the world, and to Japan..

Sometimes I receive comments from overseas.

Among them was a recent e-mail inviting me to link to one Blog.  I imagine that this could be partly because postings from Japan are not many.  Understanding that their site is well known, I was happy to accept this invitation.  They seem to choose which of my postings they will link to their site, a good thing.

This is my site in their Blog.  How much increase in hits will this link bring?  I look forward to finding it out.

 

Activating Intellectual Property of BioScience and Tech in Universities; Can We Succeed?

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Although countless problems are still to be solved, attempts to make use of intellectual properties accumulated in university and research institutions will get started.  This is good.  This is an effort to build functional structures that are attractive to enterprises.  There are still, however, many problems and challenges along the way enough to cause you a headache…..

I joined the press conference (in Japanese) in August 6th with my colleagues.

Scientists, engineers tend to draw a big picture or expectations from their own findings or inventions, thinking and sensing somewhat in a linear, direct goals.  It is only natural that they do so and there is nothing wrong about it.

However, people who are not scientists or engineers would often think about these findings or outcomes in relations to other ‘idea/information’ and sometimes better ‘idea/information’ emerge from such thinking.  In Japanese, we express this phenomenon as; ‘Okame Hachimoku (Onlookers can read the game (far) better than the players themselves)’ (in Japanese).  Many examples of Okame Hachimoku are found in history.

After all, it is private sector and enterprizes which deliver new services and products from inventions and discoveries to customers, thus create new market. Scientists or engineers can not do this. Of course, there are always exceptional scientists and engineers who also succeed in business, but they are exceptions.　

The new combination – ‘Neues Kombinazion’ as Schumpeter put it　- is precisely what creates new values.  This is precisely the ‘innovation’ that Schumpeter talks about.

Clayton Christensen, as you know, is today’s guru of Innovation.  Especially, ‘Disruptive Innovation’ is the core of his outstanding research.  His analysis, insights, views…everything in his books are extraordinary.  More recently, he writes on education and health care, too.

I think many businessmen read ‘The Innovator’s Dillemma’, another well known book, a bit older, but a classics, published about 10 years ago.